In her capacity as a member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Betsey Stevenson took over the White House's I Love Charts blog on August 26, Women's Equality Day, to post a series of graphs about women's progress in the economy.
Among the data that Stevenson has compiled are the facts that women now make up about half the workforce, that women make up the majority of college students, and that the share of women in graduate school is more than 25 percent higher than the share of men. Still, women make up less than 20 percent of graduates in computer science and engineering, the U.S. has slipped from 7th to 16th since 1990 in women's labor force participation, and women continue to make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men.
"Here's the bottom line," writes Stevenson. "We're making progress, but the gender pay gap still exists at all income levels, and widens as people get older." To help solve this problem, according to Stevenson, Americans should support President Obama and oppose Washington inertia.
Betsey Stevenson is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Ford School on leave to serve as a member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. She also holds appointments with the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, and the Board of Directors of the American Law and Economics Association.